Applying God’s Love: Christ as the Transformer of Culture
As a Christian leader, I long to see cultures flourish in relationship with their Creator—to witness beauty and justice emerge as people respond to God’s transforming love. Jeff Myers, in Understanding the Culture, reminds readers that Christians are not called to withdraw from culture but to engage it redemptively—demonstrating how biblical truth restores what is broken in the world.¹ Myers explains that followers of Christ are called to see culture as part of our mission, take it seriously, and create new culture.² This vision insists that Christ’s transforming love reaches every sphere of human life and invites believers to view culture itself as a setting where God’s redemptive work continues.
Living in a culture I was not raised in has deepened this conviction. I have learned that transformation does not come through human design or persuasion but through participation—joining what God is already doing in the hearts of people. The conversionist vision acknowledges the fallenness of humanity yet recognizes Christ’s power to restore culture toward what is good, not merely different.³ This shift—from striving to change culture to responding to God’s ongoing renewal within it—has reshaped how I understand leadership and community. My hope is that others will also be drawn into this slow, steady work of grace, carrying it forward long after me.
To explore this further, I turned to a range of voices—scholarly, theological, and practical—that examine how trust, humility, and learning foster movement toward cultural renewal. These perspectives have helped me see that applying God’s love in complex contexts requires more than conviction; it requires a posture of listening, patience, and shared growth. They remind me that while transformation is ultimately God’s work, He invites us to participate through faithfulness and relational trust. In this sense, cultural transformation begins with the heart’s response to God’s initiative—an ethos shaped by the gospel and expressed through the way we live, lead, and love others.
David DeSteno’s The Truth About Trust provides insight into this tension. He describes trust as “a bet about the future contingent actions of others,”⁴ noting that humans naturally seek their own advantage. Trust, then, becomes necessary precisely where our interests diverge. From a Christian perspective, this highlights the radical distinctiveness of the gospel: while human trust is often conditional, Christ calls us to a trust that mirrors His sacrificial love—one that gives freely, not expecting return. In contexts where cultural values emphasize self-preservation or suspicion, Christian leaders are invited to model a trust that looks beyond personal benefit toward mutual flourishing. Such trust reflects God’s initiative to extend grace unconditionally—a trust that transforms relationships and, in time, cultures.
Amy Edmondson’s The Right Kind of Wrong complements this perspective by showing how learning and transformation often begin with failure. She writes, “If you’re not failing, you’re not journeying into new territory,”⁵ emphasizing that growth requires psychological safety—a space where people can be honest about mistakes without fear. From a gospel perspective, such safety mirrors the grace of Christ, who meets people not in their perfection but in their need. Failure, then, becomes the soil where humility and dependence on God can take root. When Christian leaders cultivate environments marked by grace and openness, they echo Christ’s invitation to bring shortcomings into the light—not for condemnation, but for renewal. In this way, transformation is not hindered by failure; it is often born through it.
Both DeSteno and Edmondson, though writing from secular disciplines, illuminate important dimensions of a conversionist ethos. These ideas echo Myers’s reminder that Christ transforms cultures through changed hearts. When trust and humility take root, the gospel becomes visible in how people live, lead, and love. Because our natural inclination is to protect our own interests, the work of transformation begins only when grace teaches us to trust and give ourselves for the good of others; as Myers notes, the Christ-the-transformer-of-culture view assumes that when the truly good happens in culture, it is because of Christ, not in spite of him.⁶
This conviction finds resonance in cross-cultural psychology, which studies how human behavior and cultural context shape one another. John Berry describes culture as “the shared way of life of a group of people” and emphasizes the “mutual, interactive relationship between cultural and behavioral phenomena.”⁷ This suggests that while cultures vary in expression, the human need for meaning, belonging, and moral grounding remains universal. Berry’s framework—especially his discussion of relativism and universalism—provides a useful tension to Myers’s perspective, inviting reflection on whether moral truths are shared across cultures or shaped within them. Relativists argue that morality and truth are culture-bound, while universalists maintain that some truths transcend culture. The gospel supports the latter: it speaks to every culture not by erasing difference but by fulfilling the deepest longings within each. Transformation, then, involves engaging culture as both context and participant in God’s redemptive story.
Stephen Hicks, in Explaining Postmodernism, presents another challenge. Postmodern thought resists universal truth claims, suggesting that power, not truth, often drives cultural narratives.⁸ While Hicks helps explain the skepticism that shapes much of contemporary culture, his perspective also highlights the uniqueness of the Christian vision. The gospel invites not domination but service, not relativism but revelation. It asserts that truth is not a human construct but a person—Christ himself—who redeems and redefines our understanding of culture.
Taken together, these perspectives—Myers’ theology, DeSteno’s psychology, Edmondson’s organizational insight, Berry’s cross-cultural framework, and Hicks’ philosophical critique—form a richer picture of transformation. Myers calls believers to apply God’s love in every sphere of life. DeSteno reveals the human tension between self-interest and trust, reminding us why grace must reshape our motives. Edmondson shows that truth and humility foster environments where growth can take root. Berry highlights the interplay between shared human longings and cultural distinctiveness, and Hicks warns that without truth, power becomes the substitute. Each, in its own way, shows that cultural renewal happens when human trust and divine grace converge in everyday life.
Together, these voices point to a vision of culture that is responsive rather than controlling—a culture that reflects “the story of God’s mighty deeds and of humanity’s responses to them.”⁹ For Christian leaders, this means approaching culture not as something to master, but as something to love through participation in God’s redemptive work. Transformation begins when we live out the gospel in tangible ways—listening well, extending grace, and building trust that reflects the heart of Christ. As I continue to learn from the culture around me, I am reminded that renewal does not depend on my influence but on Christ’s presence made visible through His people. That, to me, is the heart of the conversionist vision—and the hope of every Christian leader seeking to see God’s love bring life to the world.
- Jeff Myers, Understanding the Culture: A Survey of Social Engagement (Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2017), 98–99, Kindle edition.
- Ibid., 100.
- Ibid., 98–99.
- David DeSteno, The Truth About Trust: How It Determines Success in Life, Love, Learning, and More (New York: Penguin Publishing, 2014), 5, Kindle edition.
- Amy C. Edmondson, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well (New York: Simon Element, 2023), 3.
- Myers, Understanding the Culture, 102, Kindle edition.
- John W. Berry et al., Cross-Cultural Psychology: Research and Applications, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 4–5, Kindle edition.
- Stephen R. C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Tempe, AZ: Scholargy Publishing, 2004), 24–25, Kindle edition.
- Myers, Understanding the Culture, 98, Kindle edition.
About the Author
Elysse Burns
3 responses to “Applying God’s Love: Christ as the Transformer of Culture”
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Elysse, I have enjoyed walking alongside you as you have adjusted to, embraced, and flourished in a position where you cross cultures daily. What is a way you can practically model to our host country how to have “a vision of culture that is responsive rather than controlling or passive”?
Elysse,
Great job, engaging in cross-cultural relationships can be so difficult. If cultural transformation begins in the heart, then what sort of reflective practices might the church need to encourage to help facilitate this transformation?
Dr. Elysse, I love the vision for trust and grace to cultivate a culture that is “responsive rather than controlling.” We have learned about a variety of public and political theologies, from Augustine, Anabaptism, through to Christian Nationalism. What public theology, or way for the church to model God’s Kingdom in society do you think works most intuitively with your framework here? Why?